For our Celebrations topic and Turks and Caicos Heritage week, the Kindergarten children learned about many of the things that make Turks and Caicos beautiful and unique. They were encouraged to share their favorite thing and what it meant to them.
We learned that Turks and Caicos Islanders come together during celebrations and cook many of the old traditional foods such as Johnny Cake, Souse and Boiled Fish and Grits. We listened to the story of ‘The Stone Soup’ and made our own soup with Johnny Cake.
Celebrations are a time to dress up in our Sunday Best. In the past, this would be made from flour bags. Each child painted their own Turks and Caicos national dress or shirt to learn about the national pride of each island.
They painted with lots of lovely colour:
Red for the Turks Head Cactus on Grand Turk
White for the salt on Salt Cay
Orange for the lobster found in the ocean around South Caicos
Tan for the Thatch (palm tree) straw work on Middle Caicos
Green for the beautiful green plantation on North Caicos and Parrot Cay
Turquoise for the turquoise water surrounding Providenciales and Pine Cay
Pink- The beautiful conch shell, flamingoes and numerous uninhabited cays that make up the island chain
Yellow- Represents God’s glory and the sunshine.
In the past, they would depend on the flour bags to make clothing.
The ladies use a scarf of one colour around their waist and the men wear a head band around their straw hats to represent the island they come from. The National dress symbolizes the humble, hard working life of the early ancestors who worked so hard many years ago.
To bring more meaning to this, the story of Stone Soup was read and reenacted with homemade Johnny Cake to show how people worked together with little to make it much more. The moral of the story is that it is not how much you bring to the pot but that every little helps to make it something that everyone can enjoy.
